NYMPHALroAE: APATURIDI. 1791 



upon flowers, but a rotten apple or fallen grape is much more to its taste, 

 and especially, if there is any decaying or fetid animal matter in the vi- 

 cinity, it will greedily settle upon it, and then loses all sense of danger and 

 may be covered by the net without even attempting to rise." (Edwards.) 



Riley says the butterflies appear in eastern Missouri by the middle of 

 June and a second brood of butterflies during August, but that "they 

 overlap each other so that a few of the later individuals of the first 

 coexist with the earlier individuals of the second, and the buttei-flies may be 

 found more or less abundantly from early June till September." Edwards 

 says that in West Virginia some individuals hibernate, lay their eggs early 

 in the spring and that these produce butterflies by the middle of June and 

 that there is a second brood ; but that the wintering caterpillars begin to 

 feed early in May and produce their butterflies about the end of May. 



The eggs "are attached rather slightly to the under side of a leaf, 

 either singly or in small clusters not exceeding a dozen. In form they are 

 nearly globular, with very delicate, longitudinal ribs and still finer trans- 

 verse striae. In hatching, the enclosed larva pushes open the crown, 

 which lifts like a cap. When first hatched, this larva is of a uniform 

 yellovi^, sparsely covered with a few short hairs, and with a head which is 

 jet-black and always hornless — thus differing materially from the head 

 subsequently worn. The larvae of this, the first, brood feed for rather 

 less than a month, when they transform and give out the second brood of 

 butterflies during August. These lay eggs again, which in due time hatch. 

 But the second brood of larvae thus hatching, instead of feeding with good 

 appetite as did the first brood, is more lethargic from the start, and 

 develops more slowly. Every worm, after passing through the second or 

 third molt, ceases to eat ; then shrinks in size and stations itself on the 

 under side of a leaf. Here it changes its fresh green color for a dingy 

 grayish brown (caused by more or less distinct purplish marks on a dingy 

 yellow ground) , the better to keep in conformity with that of its dying 

 support, with which, eventually, it falls to the earth, and there hibernates. 

 A heavy snow may cover it many inches deep ; a drenching rain may soak 

 it through and through ; the mercury may sink 22° F. below, or rise 80° 

 above zero ; but this little worm is indifferent to all, and sleeps a pro- 

 found torpid sleep from the first of October till vegetation starts anew the 

 ensuing spring. The weather in St. Louis is often delightfully mild and 

 even warm long after this larva has gone into winter quarters, but nothing 

 short of the animating breath of the vernal year prompts it to renew the 

 activity it lost the fall before." (Riley.) 



In Mr. Edwards's opinion it is more probable that the caterpillar hiber- 

 nates "hidden among the corky ridges of the bark of the tree." 



The caterpillar feeds, like its congener, on Celtis occidentalis. "This 

 larva is found when at rest on the under side of the leaf usually on 



